3.18.2014

This post is to inform you that Java 8 has been officially released by Oracle. You can download the official release here.

In a nutshell:

Lambda expressions: a new language feature that enables you to treat functionality as a method argument, or code as data.

Other significant enhancements and changes to the Java language and standard libraries including default methods, the new java.util.stream package, and the Date-Time API.

Compact Profiles contain predefined subsets of the Java SE platform and enable applications that do not require the entire Platform to be deployed and run on small devices.

Security enhancements include updates to the Java Cryptography Architecture; limited doPrivileged, a mechanism that enables code to assert a subset of its privileges; SSL/TLS Server Name Indication (SNI) Extension; and keystore enhancements.

JavaFX documentation has been updated for this release.

A new JavaScript engine, Nashorn, is included in JDK 8.

Java Mission Control 5.3 is included in JDK 8.

Decommission of the JVM Permanent Generation space and replaced by the Metaspace.

I will publish more articles in the upcoming weeks, including tutorials on Java Mission Control 5.3 which is now part of the JDK 8.

In the meantime, I suggest that you revisit my original article on the replacement of the HotSpot PermGen space by the Metaspace. I will publish the part 2 in the upcoming weeks.